by Ted Guhl

Dear Tithonus,
The goddess of morning has asked me to write
a poem for her. Not in so many
words, but you know well that
it is wise to heed the least flicker
of a goddess' eyebrow.

What am I to do? She says she does not want
me, and I am inclined
to believe her - knowing how youth
appeals to her above all other qualities - and
while I am not as old as you are (what
man is?), I am still not free to leave...

What am I to do?
These goddesses are notoriously fickle,
apt to turn one into a lizard for having
been less than zealous in praise.

Suppose my poetry
offends where I mean it to please?
If I praise her personality will she feel I have
overlooked her beauty?
If her beauty, will she see my lust?
I could write about the passion I imagine
in her kiss? No, she will find the thought repulsive.
Perhaps the intellect she takes such pride in? It will bore her,
she has told it to herself so often.
What of her gentleness? No, she is hiding it for
a reason.
Her generousity? She'll think I want a present.
Her honesty? Ah, but she lied to you, didn't she;
and she has already questioned me, but
it is dangerous to tell the truth. One must hide
behind veils of poetry and...

Sorry, Tithonus. I am lost in myself;
I have not considered that
it must be torture for you, forever to live with youth
without being forever young; to age daily
and neither death nor lust as anodyne. Yours is the most
tragic fate of all. What a monster she must be.
Does she truly keep you locked in a bed
that she leaves each morning before it is light
enough to see her? Does she still sit beside you
in all her warm youth, but deny you her arms, legs,
mouth, belly? Does she laugh at your chirping cry?
And have you come to hate morning with all of
the passion with which you once loved it?

Ah Tithonus, what am I to do?
I do not wish to forget the morning
merely because I am afternoon. My poetry is small
and my heart tired from offering empty praise to Eosphorus
and Aurora. Let youth and physical beauty be their own admirers.

Why can't she write her own poem?